Wonders of missions

Front matter

WINDERS

OF Missions

Caroline Atwater Mason

Foreword

The purpose of this book is not to narrate the story of Foreign Missions, but to illustrate it. l^o attempt has been made to present a comprehensive thesaurus of striking episodes in the course of missionary history. I suppose, were this to be done, not even the world itself could contain the books that should be written. The incidents and characters described, gleaned from many sources, may not transcend in interest or importance multitudes not here included. These have been chosen as typical and signiificant. They are set forth in the belief that, however familiar, they will serve afresh as a tonic to our faith and to our devotion.

C. A. M.

Contents

PA<n PART ONE: THE STANDARD LIFTED

CHAPTER

I The Cobbler • * » 15

PART FOUR: ALONG LIVINGSTONE'S TRAIL I Philanthropy Not Enough 163

II FBAN9OIS COILLARD ....«.«.».. 165

III Christina Coillard ..^....r.-... 168

ix

X

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VAC v.

IV The Mission or the Basuto to the Bahotsi . . . 172

V Ok Livingstone's Gbound 178

VI The Close of Day 183

VII The RoAD-BuiLDEaa 185

VIII "The-Geeat-White-Ma-Who-Ltved-Alone" . . . 198

PART FIVE: THE SOUTHERN CROSS I The White Peril , . . 206

II The White Benison 911

IV The Hervey Islands 229

V Death and Life in the New Hebrides 226

VI King George Tubotj of Tonga 233

VII JoELi, "A Man Indeed" 237

VIII Pao, Apostle of Lifu 242

IX Kekela and Abraham Lincoln 245

X Great-Heart of New Guinea 248

PART SIX: THE SPLENDID ADVENTUROUS THIR- TIES I The Decade 1832-1842 9i9

II The Bible and the School 261

III Education of Women of the East 964

IV LOTEDALE AND OtHERS 270

V Flow and Ebb in Madagascar 276

VI Trrus Coan of Hilo 281

CONTENTS xi

PAGE

Part Seven: High Lights Down The Decades 1852-1922

CHAPTER

I The Sunrise Kingdom 289

II Apostles to Japan 293

III Japanese Progress and Problems 302

IV "The Cause of the Afflicted" 305

V Opening Doors and Mass Movements 309

VI A Blood-Red Sbal 321

VII Ckoss AND Crescent 328

VIII Makers of the Futube ............ 339

Part One: THE STANDARD LIFTED

"If Christian Missions were to take tlieir rightful place in Britain's Indian activities a double conversion was clearly required, — a conversion in Britain as well as in India, a conversion of the churches to missionary duty, as well as a conversion of the Hindus to the Christian faith. . . . One line is peculiar to Carey, and marks him off from all later missionaries. Those who followed him, even the greatest of them, went out at the call of the Church, addressed to them directly or indirectly. The Church called and they responded. But Carey had to constrain the Church to issue the call. His was the compelling force that raised the Church from her inertia."

J. N. Ogilvie.

"Let me tell you what I consider the greatest miracle of the present day. It is this: That to this country with its over 300 millions of people, there should come from a little island, unknown even by name to our forefathers, many thousand miles distant from our shores, and with a population of about 50 or 60 millions, a message so full of spiritual life and strength as the Gospel of Christ. Surely this is a miracle if there ever was one. And this message has not only come, but is finding response in our hearts. The process of the conversion of India to Christ may not be going on as rapidly as you hope, or exactly in the manner you hope, but nevertheless I say, India is being converted. The ideas which lie at the heart of the Gospel of Christ are slowly but surely permeating • every phase of Hindu thought."

Sir Narayan G. Chardavarkar, Judge of the High Court of Bombay.

I

THE COBBLER

On a June evening a young man with a pack on his back plodded along the country road which leads from iNorthampton in the English Midlands to the outlying town of Kettering.

Although it was yet scarcely dusk the hour was late, the pack was plainly heavy and the bent shoulders and slow steps of the man who bore it suggested that the end of a long tramp after a long day's work was at hand. And so it was. A few lights could now be seen off to the left, and passing an imposing stone gateway, — entrance to Overstone Park, — the traveller, whose name was William Carey, came suddenly upon the cluster of cottages which forms the village of Moulton.

Turning with quickened steps into a narrow lane the young man soon reached a row of six thatched cottages, their casements wreathed with June roses, their gardens gay with larkspur and gilly-flowers even in the failing light.

As he entered the house-door Carey dropped his pack noiselessly on the floor of the narrow entry, then passed into the keeping-room. A querulous voice challenged him from the room beyond.

"What ill news this time ?" was the greeting.

"No ill news, Dolly. I hope you're all right. I've a bit of new leather with me so there's work to finish yet to-night. It will keep me late I fear."

"What do I care, late or early, so you come quiet? Let the children sleep now, for mercy's sake."

Upon this Carey stepped softly back the way he had come, picked up his bundle, and went on through the kitchen, thence into a small well-kept vegetable garden. Here, at right angles with the cottage, stood a rude shed. Above its low door appeared a sign: second-hand

SHOES BOUGHT AND SOLD.

The place was silent and unlighted as Carey entered it, but he seemed to look for no good cheer to attend his coming. With the practised motions of the man who has learned to serve himself he lighted a candle, then brought out from a cupboard bread and cheese, which he placed with a certain fastidious orderliness upon the work-bench standing between two windows.

Before he sat down to his evening meal, however, the cobbler opened the packet which he had carried home from Northampton and took out sheet after sheet of coarse, heavy leather. These he laid with great care upon a rude shelf beside the bench, ready for his night's work. Seating himself on the wooden stool before the bench, he bowed his head in a silent blessing, then attacked his supper with a will. The candle's rays fell on a large sheet of whity-brown paper tacked up to face him on the wall above the bench. It was composed of several small sheets pasted together. Carey's eyes remained fixed upon this sheet as he ate with inexorable concentration.

In some curious fashion the shop seemed to contain in reality this one thing only. All beside was essentially

THE COBBLER 17

negligible to the cobbler. And all beside was sordid and bleak enough. On this paper was drawn in rude but well-emphasised outline a map of the eastern and westem continents, certain portions being picked out in colours or marked by symbolic signs.

Having put away the remnants of his supper, Carey made the bench tidy, then put on his shoemaker's apron, laid out the tools required for the work next before him and with these a Hebrew grammar, drawn from the pocket of his threadbare coat. As he did this he was surprised by a knock at the shop door. On opening it a tall, heavily-built man in parson's dress entered.

"How are you the night, William Carey ?" he asked, shaking hands gravely but with hearty kindliness. "And how's the wife ? and the bairns ? Church business brought me to Moulton to-day. I knew I'd find your light burning, so stepped in before going to the Checkers of Hope where I am to bide till morning."

Carey murmured a welcome, his acute pleasure in the unlooked-for visit rendering him almost inarticulate.

Andrew Fuller, pastor of the Baptist church at Kettering, was but seven years older than his host, but he carried with him, in person and bearing, the dignity, confidence and spiritual authority of the established religious leader, which were altogether lacking to the other. Although Carey had been a lay preacher since he was nineteen (he was now twenty-eight) and had for three years been in charge of the little Moulton church, his humility and distrust of himself were pathetic.

"Pve great news to give you. Brother," remarked Carey, as the friends settled into conversation. "You find me working at my trade as usual, and so I shall be yet a few weeks, but not longer."

"What good fortune has befallen you 1"

^'Well," pursued Carey, self-command and poise now returned, "it happens in this way. Yesterday week I took in my work to Kettering, — where I failed to find you in when I went to your house, — and just as I had emptied my bag, who should come in but Mr. Gotch himself."

"Ah, indeed. Very good," murmured Fuller.

"He took up one of the shoes and he said to me, 'Let me see, Carey, how much do you earn a week V I said, 'About nine shillings, sir.' Then said Mr. Gotch, 'I have a secret to tell you, which is this : I do not intend you shall spoil any more of my leather, but you may proceed as fast as you can with your Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and I will allow you from my own private purse, ten shillings a week.' "

"A generous-minded gentleman, Mr. Gotch, for a fact," rejoined Fuller, his face enlivened by warm satisfaction. "And he sees what is inside a man."

"A marvellous great heart he has," echoed Carey. "Think of what that means. With that sum and almost five shillings besides which I get from my people here in Moulton, I can make a comfortable living even though I no longer earn aught for the school teaching. The old master, you know, is back again."

"l^ot an over-great income for the keep of wife and three youngsters," commented Fuller a shade dubiously. "How often do you have meat, I wonder ?"

"Oh, once a month any way. And this is better than I can do with the cobbling, and think of the chance I'll have at the Greek and for searching into the state of the nations, Mr. Fuller. You see yonder," and he pointed towards the bench. "That map is what I feed on by day and by night. You can see the marks there for population, state as to religion and all such. The

THE COBBLER 19

world's needs as they stand before me are overwhelming, and what are we Christian folk in England doing?"

Fuller shook his head. This was plainly a sore point and an old one with his friend.

"Little enough," he murmured.

"'Not little, but nothing," exclaimed Carey, his eyes flashing, his face glowing with impassioned feeling. "For ten years, as you know, — for you searched my mind three years ago when you and Ryland and Sutcliff ordained me to the ministry, — ^my heart has been weighed down with a sense of the awful condition of the slaves and of the heathen. Every day of my life I wrestle with God in prayer for them. But, Mr. Fuller, I sometimes think I hear a voice within my soul that says to me: Who will answer your prayer if not yourself?"

Then seeing the startled look which appeared in Fuller's face, he continued,

"I know what you think but will not say: — Can "William Carey, this ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-educated cobbler, with his sick wife and ailing children, think he is called of God to do what no English Christian, layman or minister of our day has done, — go to heathen lands as a missionary ?"

As Fuller attempted to interrupt him, Carey, wholly unconscious now of the old sense of inferiority to his friend, persisted.

"Yes, my brother," he cried, "I have even dreamed that such might be God's will for me. For look you, I can carry burdens, heavy ones. I have carried them all my life. And I can plod. And then" — breaking off with a laugh, yet wistfully, "you know yourself I have a turn for languages."

Fuller gazed at him in silence for a moment, then spoke.

"Yes. That is hardly too strong. Seven weeks sufficed you to master Latin, I rememher, and now you have compassed Greek and are on your way to Hebrew, I judge from yonder grammar on your bench. But, William, do you not comprehend that our brethren would regard such a proposal on your part as spiritual presumption ? Surely they will tell you that in the purposes of God according to election the heathen are set apart as vessels of wrath unto destruction ?"

"Andrew Fuller," declared Carey, rising and facing the other, something stem and compelling in his look, "you and I know that is not true."

Then he turned away, brought out a rudely locked wooden box and with a sudden shyness, as he took from it a handful of written sheets, said:

"I have put together here a few considerations which have come to me on this subject. Would you care to look these pages over ?"

Fuller, taking the manuscript into his hand, read aloud the words which appeared to stand as title to the paper :

"An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the Conversion of the Heathens, in which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings are considered by Willia^m Carey. , . . For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. . . . How shall they preach except they be sent?"

For a moment there was silence. Half mechanically Carey turned away to his bench and took up one of his tools.

THE COBBLER 21

Then Fuller said, "Fetch another candle, my friend, if you will. I see I must look into this. Set about your own work the while, whether it be mending shoes to-night or studying Hebrew."

At the end of an hour, Carey, hearing an exclamation from Fuller, turned from his bench.

Heading with deliberate emphasis from the manuscript in his hand. Fuller pronounced these sentences:

" *Can we as men or as Christians, hear that a great part of our fellow-creatures, whose souls are as immortal as ours . . . are enveloped in ignorance and barbarism? Can we hear that they are without the Gospel, without government, without laws, and without arts and sciences, and not exert ourselves to introduce among them the sentiments of men and Christians ? ... It is inconsistent for ministers to please themselves with thoughts of a numerous auditory, cordial friends, a civilised country, legal protection, affluence, even a competency. The slight and hatred of men, even pretended friends, gloomy prisons and tortures, the society of barbarians of uncouth speech, miserable accommodations in wretched wildernesses, hunger and thirst, nakedness, weariness and painfulness, hard work and but little encouragement, should rather be the objects of their expectation. Thus the apostles acted in the primitive times, and endured hardness, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.' "

Here Fuller broke off, rose to his feet, and laid his hand on his friend's shoulder, and exclaimed :

"You have written the ablest missionary treatise since the days of the l^ew Testament. But how dare you do it, William Carey, unless you are ready to follow all the way it leads you ?"

"I am ready, by the grace of God," was the answer.

II

At the door of the Church of St. Mary's in Leicester on a Spring morning two men were standing engaged in earnest talk. The one, a graceful, polished gentleman in the garb of the Anglican clergy, was the Rev. Thomas Kobinson, rector of the church. The other, a short, thick-set man, noticeable only for the intellectual power of the fine head and brow, was William Carey, for two years now pastor of the Harvey Lane Baptist chapel.

A rare sight in those days, the fraternising of two men of these opposing ecclesiastical positions, even though neighbours, as in this case. But of these two, each was a law unto himself. Robinson was of the evangelical strain, hence in harmony with all simple and sincere souls. Carey, although bom and bred in the Established Church and forsaking it in boyhood for the Baptist body only from a crude sense of bearing a selfimposed cross, was of all men most catholic in his convictions. To him the division into denominations was a matter of method, not a matter of faith.

"I wish you would give me the secret of your preaching, Mr. Carey," remarked Mr. Robinson, anent some matter under discussion between them. "Your people love you, they tell me, as they love their own souls. I hear of your crowded chapel, of the new gallery demanded to hold the folk who throng to your services. !Now, I have no need for new galleries ! Look out. J may accuse you one of these days of stealing my sheep."

They laughed together at the notion, but Carey replied presently with serious emphasis, "Mr. Robinson, I am a dissenter and you are a churchman. We must endeavour to do good according to our light. You may be assured that I had rather be the instrument of converting a scavenger that sweeps the streets, than of merely proselyting the richest and best characters in your congregation."

"That I most heartily believe," returned the other. "Carey, you are an example to all of us in more ways than one. Never did I see so inveterate a student of the dead languages, or of divinity. Man, you are unmerciful to yourself! Never an hour do you spare for pastime."

"Pastime!" broke in Carey, "have you not seen my flowers? My pride, my joy? Botany, my dear sir, is my pastime. Can you name a better ? And next week I shall have a holiday, for I go to Nottingham, to the ministers' meeting of our persuasion there."

"How about your ministers?" inquired Robinson. Do they respond to this missionary passion with which you are inspired? I have read your publication, the Enquiry, and admire its tone and temper, as you know. But in our communion I find no such spirit. The idea of a Christian mission to the Orient, particularly to India, is regarded by churchmen as fanatical, worst of all, — in shocking taste," and he smiled half bitterly.

"Our men will respond," said Carey quietly. "My face is set to the heathen world, and how shall I go unless I be sent ?"

"Do not, I beg of you," exclaimed Robinson, "set your face towards India."

"The islands of the South Seas are my choice, but why not India ?"

"Our Government which protects and upholds the Church, you know, also protects the India House." Again a smile, half cynical, half sad, crossed the rector's face. "The two see eye to eye on the subject of missions to the natives as subversive of all good government. You would have a powerful antagonist in the East India Company if you struck athwart their position."

"But I should have a more powerful Ally, you know," with which, smiling a Good Morning, Carey parted with his good neighbour and friend for the morning.

A week later the Baptist ministers of that section of country were gathered in the church in Nottingham for their annual meeting. On the evening of May 31st William Carey stood in the pulpit and preached the sermon which has caused that year, 1792, to be known as the annus mirahilis in the story of missions.

All the burning convictions so long pent up broke through the humble craftsman's restraints of selfdistrust and diffidence. He who had been at once village school-master, cobbler and preacher, addressed his brethren as a prophet of God, fearless, authoritative, denouncing the complacent indifference to missions in the church at large for fourteen centuries. The subject of the preaching was the obligation of the Christian Church to give the Gospel to the heathen world. The text was Isaiah liv:2, 3; the gist:

EXPECT GREAT THINGS FROM GOD.

ATTEMPT GREAT THINGS FOR GOD.

TBe company was swept as by an electric storm.

*'If all the people had lifted up their voices and wepty I should not have wondered at the effect. It would only have seemed proportionate to the cause, so clearly did he prove the criminality of our supineness to the cause of God." Thus Dr. John Eyland described the immediate reaction to this historic appeal.

But when Carey came down from the pulpit still trembling with the force of his spiritual passion, and took John Ryland's outstretched hand, he sought in vain for suggestion of definite response to his supreme appeal.

What did it mean? He had noted the change of color, the flicker of emotion in the countenances of his hearers as he was speaking. Was the effect gone already ? He turned to Andrew Fuller. Fuller grasped his hand but did not meet his eye. He spoke confusedly of generalities in the order of the day. But Carey saw that he trembled. Others were turning away as if preferring not to encounter him.

In anguish of spirit approaching despair, Carey grasped Fuller's arm.

"And are you after all, about to separate again without doing anything?" he cried in bitterness which could not be restrained. Neither could it be gainsaid. For Carey prevailed. These "inexperienced, poor and ignorant village preachers" then and there took heart of grace to do their part, since face to face with them stood a man called of God to the great adventure.

The brethren were summoned to order; and the following resolution was passed and was recorded on the minutes of that memorable day : "That a plan be prepared against the next Ministers' Meeting at Kettering for forming a Baptist Society for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen."

It was the second day of October, 1792. From it we date the genesis of our modem Foreign Missions. In Kettering, market-town of Northamptonshire, twelve ministers had come together, twelve men as little fitted to lead a new and mighty crusade in parts of the world far distant and unknown, as were the twelve peasants of Galilee who once met in the upper room in Jerusalem to take counsel together concerning the will and work of their ascended Lord. Like them, these Englishmen were without money, without influence. There was no precedent for them to follow ; no missionary association whose methods they might imitate ; no favourable opening was known to them in any heathen country ; no other body of Protestant Christians in England contemplated or even favoured such action.

As Andrew Fuller said afterwards, "When we began in 1Y92 there was little or no respectability among us; not so much as a squire to sit in the chair, or an orator to make speeches to him. Good Dr. Stennett advised the London ministers to stand aloof, and not commit themselves."

Andrew Fuller had recently lost by death his right hand man in his Kettering parish. Deacon Wallis. His widow, knowing what would have been her husband's desire, invited these men to meet that evening in her comfortable home. The parlour of the house, on the ground floor, looking out upon the garden, had been set apart hospitably for their use. Here, not without trepidation, but not without the dignity of courage, the twelve almost imknown Englishmen sat together for hours in conference, a conference whose issues are to-day felt round the globe.

Resolutions were passed, twelve in number. Here are the first and the third :

"1. Desirous of making an effort for the propagation of the Gospel among the heathen, agreeably to what is recommended in Brother Carey's late publication on that subject, we, whose names appear to the present subscription, do solemnly agree to act in society together for that purpose.

"3. As such an undertaking must needs be attended with expense, we agree immediately to open a subscription for the above purpose and to recommend it to others."

Twelve signatures follow, after which is added: "whose subscriptions in all amounted to £13 :2s :6d." Andrew Fuller was named secretary of the Society.

Thus was born the first Protestant Missionary Society in the Anglo-Saxon world.

On January 10th, 1793, William Carey and John Thomas, a Christian ship's surgeon who had been in India and had preached to the Hindu people, were appointed by the newly created Society missionaries, Bengal being the proposed field of labour. Support for these two men with their wives and children was named as "£100 or £150 a year between them all" until they should he able to support themselves. As it turned out, it was only for three years that these first missionaries received their meagre stipend, and during that time the sum total remitted was £200. Self-support was one of

Carey's cardinal principles, drawn from the Moravian Missions, his noble example.

On June 13th, 1793, the missionary company set sail for India on the Danish ship Cron Princessa Maria, The five intervening months had been full of trouble, Carey having for the first time encountered the inflexible opposition of the East India Company. Missionaries were "a contraband article." !N^o unlicensed person could be allowed to enter India, and the Company would grant no license to men bent on such a mission as his. Robinson had known whereof he spoke. Hence, after embarking on the East Indiaman, Oxford, they were ejected therefrom as open to the charge of *'high crime and misdemeanor" and landed summarily on the Isle of Wight.

But Danish India, free from the commercial tyranny of the British East India Company, had no such ruling of exclusion against Carey and Thomas. A Danish Indiaman, touching at Dover, willingly took the missionaries on board.

They were off at last! Great was their joy. What now could hinder them? But obstacles which would have daunted any heart less fixed than Carey's awaited them. For Calcutta, where they landed on ISTovember 11th, offered them no abiding place. The East India Company being firmly entrenched in Bengal, it was not as a professed missionary, but as farmer, teacher, indigo planter, that William Carey was forced to spend his first years in India. He could bide his time. The word of God was not hound.

And it was under the Danish flag in the port of Serampore after a six years' struggle against bitter poverty and difficulties indescribable, that Carey at last, in the year 1800, obtained a permanent foothold. It was under the aegis of Denmark therefore that the modern missionary movement of which this English pioneer was Father and Founder, was originally established.

ni

THE WYCLIFFE OF THE EAST 1800 et sequitur

On the right bank of the Hugli River the traveller from Calcutta late in the first decade of the nineteenth century would note with interest a group of residential buildings surrounded by terraces and verandas covering several acres of ground. Among these a chapel and a printing-house could be seen. The entire group was surrounded by magnificent mahogany trees. In the background extended a botanic garden of extraordinary beauty. This was the missionary establishment of the "Serampore Triad."

Farther down the river stood stately patrician dwellings of Danish residents; opposite, beyond the Hugli, a half mile wide when in flood, could be seen the Governor-General's summer home, Aldeen House, the residence of Rev. David Brown, chaplain to His Excellency, and the extensive park of Barrackpore.

"At this place," wrote William Carey to Andrew Fuller from Serampore, February 5th, 1800, "we are settled out of the Company's dominions, and under the government of a power very friendly to us and our designs."

But in the year 1801 the Governor-General of Serampore, we perceive, was no longer Danish but British. .The kindly rule of Denmark, in less than two years

THE WYCLIFFE OF THE EAST SI

after the Serampore mission was established, had been handed over to the British Government, so coming under the hand of the East India Company. In the early years of the century, hov^^ever, the mission was permitted to conduct the work already begun. The missionaries already established under Danish authority were left to pursue their work in a degree of freedom although under constant espionage.

In this noble compound at Serampore, as the new century opened, William Carey was not found working alone. Following his arrival in Calcutta in 1793, he was lost to sight. For seven years he struggled single-handed in the pestilential swamps southeast of Calcutta as farmer, or in the Malda District as indigo-planter, all the while studying the language and carrying on evangelistic labour among the natives. These years of his one-man, underground work, while they showed no lasting conversions and no permanent missionary institution, had produced a native school and a parish of two hundred native villages. Meanwhile Carey had translated the whole Bible into Bengali. From this achievement, he had hastened with all a scholar's ardour into the mastery of Sanskrit, which he styled "a most beautiful language." But as he worked on alone, hardening his moral muscle in his Hindu wilderness for the years before him, Carey could scarcely realise the fire kindled in England by his letters. In quick succession four young men offered themselves to go out as his assistants. Two of these were early cut off by death. William Ward, a skilled printer and editor, with whom Carey had made acquaintance before leaving England, and Joshua Marshman, a successful teacher in a Bristol school, reached India in safety and lived to carry on the work begun by Carey in closest bonds of fellowship with him. These formed the immortal ''Serampore Triad."

But even before the day of telegraphy news travelled fast. The East India Company, alarmed at the rise of a missionary movement, begin to look askance at what Carey was accomplishing among the native population. When the ship on which Ward and Marshman were passengers anchored in the Hugli, opposite Calcutta, late in the year 1Y99, the authorities were on the watch and forbade them to land. They were warned that any attempt to do so would result in their deportation.